Barnet Council Cabinet review Edgware Redevelopment and give the Barnet Tories a does of reality

 It's been an odd week for me, as regular readers will know. Digging up ancient memories from long ago. Monday, visiting the hospital where my Mum was treated for cancer, yesterday visiting a Barnet Council Cabinet meeting, where I made my name as a blogger, attracting national interest from press, TV and all sorts of other social media. I stopped going a decade ago, as the then Leader, Tory Richard Cornelius agreed with me that the Cabinet system did not work in local government, and abolished it. Labour had brought it in, under their previous administration in 1999. Whenthe Tories were run by Maoist style leaders sucha s Mike Freer, they loved it as it avoided public and council scrutiny. When Cornelius took over, he went back to a committee system. Whatever you may think of Cornelius, he was by far the most open and reasonable leader of Barnet Council. He believed in transparency and openness and would attend public meetings to put forward his case. As a result, he was shafted after he won a stunning victory, when Labour thought they had it in the bag, in 2018 and Dan Thomas, who was more in the Freer mold came in. The dodgy, secretive ways of time gone by started to come back. The first act, when Labour won, was to bring back the Cabinet system.

Since I last attended one of these, there's now a big row of tables, stuffed with council officers, all looking bored, playing with pencils and presumably getting overtime. This space used to be reserved for the public. You can see them all looking bored, behind me in this crafty selfie!

I've had np cause to visit the Cabinet since, but last night I had a question on the arts strategy. I turned up and the public gallery was full. The Edgware redevelopment was being discussed. The room was packed, I was eyed suspiciously by a security guard who challenged me as to my motives. When I explained, he opened the door. After the usual pleasantries, we had opposition questions. Three Tories made their way to the front. These were the Leader Peter Zinkin, The deputy Lucy Wakely and a third one, who I must confess I didn't know. Now I have to say that I actually like Peter and Lucy. They are decent people. Unlike the old guard of Freer, Thomas, Rams, Coleman, etc all have only ever been reasonable and decent to me. On the night when Labour won, in 2022 at the count, I saw Peter Zinkin looking dejected at loosing his seat. I bought him a cup of tea and we had a chat. Despite what people say, most councillors are actually decent people, who want to do well for their community. It is sad that the Barnet Tories became a repository for people with dodgy agendas after they won the council in 2002. The like of Coleman had a very bloated idea of their own self worth. A (long) spell in opposition will hopefully cure the local Tories of this tendancy. 

Peter Zinkin strode up and did his best to channel his inner anger at the beastlyness of Labour, who are " ignoring local people in Edgware and not consulting". Peter's trouble is he is a reasonable man. When greeted with reasonable replies from the likes of Ross Houston and Barry the Boss, he reverted to type and was reasonable and sensible. Lucy Wakely had a go and did no better. Ultimately, the redevelopment was the Tories baby under Dan Thomas. They know they are chancing their arm and I suspect that they didn't want to push their luck in front of a bunch of residents who were keen supporters. Labour made perfectly reasonable responses (something that never happened when the Tories had a cabinet, they were obnoxious to all, especially bloggers, so we wound them up no end. The meetings had packed public galleries, that would howl with derision). It all felt rather odd to me. 

I tweeted about the Tories Chutzpah in claiming they were good at consultations, Cllr Zinkin replied

We probably did less well at the beginning but over the years we learnt and by the start of work it was almost a continuous dialogue not always appreciated but fewer misunderstandings

— Peter Zinkin (@pzinkin) June 17, 2025

The main beef seemed to be that the public hadn't had a chance to comment or ask questions. I found this rather odd, as there was a committee item and a competent opposition would have tipped the Save Edgware Campaign off and given them a hand drafting some killer questions, had they been doing their job properly. It seemed a bit strange to me listening to the leader of the Barnet Tories moaning about the way public questions are handled, when they brought the rules in that made it difficult for the public to ask questions. I remember the good old days, when there were dozens. At one time, us bloggers would liaise and share our questions, just to make sure we got everything covered. It did us no good at all, the Tories took no notice, but it was jolly good fun watching them embarrass themselves, as they thought their clever antics in giving non answers were mightily clever. 

Another beef of Councillor Zinkin was lack of consultation. Barry the Boss pointed out that this process didn't begin until planning applications were being debated. Until that point there was 'nothing to debate' Councillor Zinkin stated that in the good old days of the Tories, consultations were done properly. For anyone familiar with One Barnet, this was hilarious. The judge found that Barnet hadn't consulted properly, but that we, the people, could do nothing about it, becase we'd been too late submitting our legal objection. The formula used to calculate the date meant that a perfectly good legal challenge to a very bad administration, failed as The Tories had, by luck or design, managed to string us all along so that we'd missed the date. Our contention that it was impossible to have submitted in the alloted period as it was not clear at the time that the consultation had been botched, sadly was ruled inadmissible. And here we were, ten years later, with the Tory Leader lecturing Labour on how to do good consultations. 

The Tories did make a couple of good point, perhaps the best was that putting a garage for electric buses, that have the habit of catching fire and exploding, under massive blocks of residential flats was a bad idea. Labour seemed to agree, which rather took the wind out of Cllr Zinkins sails. The current big bugbear of the Tories is that Labour are planning to give the developers £41 Million back from the Community Infrastructure levy.  Tory Hale Councillor Gurung posted this on Facebook earlier yesterday.

Barnet Labour Backs Developers Not Residents

Tonight, Barnet Council is being asked to approve a shocking proposal: to hand back £41 million of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funds to developers Ballymore and TfL money meant for local infrastructure, schools, and services.

Even more alarming, Ballymore admitted their Broadwalk development was financially unviable yet instead of holding them to account, Barnet’s Labour-run Council is working hand-in-hand with them to return money they were obliged to pay.

This is £41 million that should be invested in our community

not handed back to developers to meet infrastructure obligations they always had.

From the start, Barnet Labour has been on Ballymore’s side. This latest move proves it once again.

We deserve a council that stands up for residents not developers. As your local councillors in Edgware and Edgwarebury we will always stand up for our residents.

I had a word with my mole in the Labour Cabinet before the meeting. I asked about this. They told me they couldn't possibly discuss the matter,given its commercially sensitive nature. I then explained that the Tories were giving them a public pasting and they really should, maybe not to me right now, but as soon as they possibly could. To my surprise, I got a full answer at this point. There are strict rules that govern such things, and the council legally has to repay the money. Keeping it and telling Ballymore to sod off, would simply mean Ballymore would sue Barnet, who would lose, have to pay the £41 million, as well as compensation and damages. Oh yes, and the Tories know this (or they should if they have done their job) and are simply making mischief. As to the development being 'not financially viable', this was simply the fault of the Tories who'd done such a rubbish job drawing up the SPD and now Labour were having to sort it all out and Edgware residents were truly lucky to have such a wonderful Labour Council, even though they'd elected useless Tory Councillors. I was then told all of this was priviliged information and if I said I word of this to anyone, I'd be locked up in Gaol for six months for breaking the local government act.

After three seconds deliberation, I decided to share this with you all. If I get sent to the slammer, I expect protest on the streets of Barnet. A free pot noodle for the first reader to guess which cabinet member broke the rules of the Papal Conclave The Local Government Act. 

They say that history repeats itself. Once as tragedy and once as farce. That certainly seems true of the Cabinet system at Barnet Council. If ever you've wondered how I feel blogging about Barnet Council, Tories and Labour, read the Greek myth of Sisiphyus.